Face Front! Friday!

This week I told you about three archetypes of mentors to avoid: Missing Mentors.

I’ve dealt with people like this in my career and I’m sure you have too… or you will. One meeting and then no contact. Or contact that offers so little in terms of learning and growth. Your hopes rising, your imagination sparking, only to vanish when emails are ignored and calls are not returned.

If these relationships are part of an informal program, you might just walk away. Why keep yelling into an empty space? Instead, seek out someone else, another mentor, a new relationship. Be sure to articulate your hopes for the relationship, and importantly, discover theirs as well. What can you offer them? Be aware of and respectful toward their time constraints. And remember to set a firm date for the next meeting or conversation… or set up regularly scheduled encounters.

However, if these mismatches are part of a formal program at work or with an organization, then tread more carefully. Here is where reputations can be made or damaged. It’s likely that Willie the Unwilling, Whit the Uninterested, and Gale the Ghost are senior to you and higher up in the org chart. There might even be repercussions if their bosses learn that not everybody is playing by their rules… for the mentors and, indirectly, for you.  You definitely do not want a mentor to turn into your nemesis. You might go back to the mentor and discuss specific projects that are common to both of your goals and needs. You can go to the organizer of the program and ask for another mentor, to gain alternate perspectives on the issues you are dealing with without throwing shade at anybody else. You can even establish informal mentoring relationships on your own, with people who are more willing to help guide you.

More mismatched mentors next week.

What do you think?